Resource identifiers

Digital Object Identifiers

Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) are persistent identifiers which can be used to consistently and accurately reference digital objects and/or content. The DOIs provide a way for the ADS resources to be cited in a similar fashion to traditional scholarly materials. More information on DOIs at the ADS can be found on our help page.

Citing this DOI

DOIs should be the last element in a citation irrespective of the format used. The DOI citation should begin with "doi:" in lowercase followed by the DOI with no spaces between the ":" and the DOI.

doi:10.5284/1000022

DOIs can also be cited as a persistent link from another Web page. This is done by appending the DOI Resolver with the DOI. This would look like:

http://dx.doi.org/10.5284/1000022

However, if it is possible it is best to hide the URL in the href property of the <a> tag and have the link text be of the form doi:10.5284/1000022. The HTML for this would look like:

The Atlas

For each of Edward’s new towns the following atlas pages provide
interpretative maps and text.

ArcIMS is slowly being abandoned by ESRI, so maintenance of the ArcIMS maps like these have become extremely difficult. We have decided to migrate these map interfaces to a more sustainable software stack using non-proprietary software. We will begin the migration to GeoServer and OpenLayers as soon as possible, but until then we apologise for any inconvenience.

Information regarding other towns can also be downloaded as a PDF document.

A standard format is kept to, so that it
is possible not only to study a town in its own right but also compare
it with others. This should help reveal what similarities and differences
there are between the thirteen towns. Such comparisons themselves might
point to common aspects of their early urban histories and town planning,
perhaps demonstrating connections between them. The maps to be found
in these pages were discussed earlier. As far as the text is concerned,
for each of the thirteen towns there is discussion firstly on the early
history of the town, secondly on the town’s design and plan (its
layout), and thirdly on the town as it is today.

The text on the early history of the town is a discussion drawn mainly
from available historical sources and secondary works, with information
about when the town was established, who was involved, and how it developed
after its foundation. The aim with this is to sketch out what is known
of the towns’ development up to and around 1300, the date at which
they are depicted by the third of the core maps. Regarding the town’s
design and plan, the focus is more on interpreting the evidence provided
by studying the physical form of the urban features shown on the core
maps. The aim here is to examine what the layouts of the towns reveal
of their initial design, including evidence for their planning. To help
provide some contemporary impression of the towns the third part of the
discussion describes their character and population as they are now,
some seven-hundred years after their foundation. The aim with this is
to relate the medieval townscape to the modern urban landscape, pointing
to those medieval features that are still visible and worthy of recognition.
With all three elements of the discussion both the map-based information
and historical accounts of the towns are drawn upon. To help trace the
sources used in these discussions a system of footnote referencing is
used which includes not only published and unpublished written work but
also archaeological and cartographic sources.

An innovative aspect of this historical atlas is the links provided
to GIS databases containing the layers of information that were used
to create the core maps. These are accessed via an interface (ArcIMS),
and archived by the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) at the University
of York. To reach them simply follow the links provided. The interface
is simple to use and does not require any GIS software. The database
contains various map layers of source material, such as historic town
plans, survey and excavation plans, architectural and building plans,
primary field-survey data, and aerial imagery. As well as these source
map layers there are also interpretative map layers, including the abstractions
of street and building-plot patterns used to create the town plans shown
by the core maps.

For each entry listed in the atlas the following summary information
is provided. First, the modern, Welsh-language name of the town, the
parish name (if different), and the county or shire the town is located
in. Then the Ordnance Survey National Grid Reference (NGR), the type
of town, and historical data. The type of town is based on a simple classification
system that identifies whether a town was a ‘castle town’ or
a ‘market town’, created with or without defences. The term
castle town is used whether or not the castle pre-dated the town or was
constructed at the same time as the town’s foundation, while ‘market
town’ is used to differentiate between those new towns that had
more of a military role from those towns whose function was solely commercial.
Defences may also either be contemporary with the town’s foundation
or established later. The historical data is derived from contemporary
written sources, and include the date at which the first market or borough
charter is recorded, and the number of the town’s burgages, burgesses,
or taxpayers given in surviving rentals or accounts. The latter provides
an indication of the population size at given a date, those selected
here being the earliest documented figures. A ‘burgage’ was
the property rented by a ‘burgess’ according to the customs
and privileges set out in a town’s borough charter. The physical
size of a burgage is occasionally stipulated. Where this is the case
it is noted. Burgess and taxpayer figures provide an approximate estimate
of urban population size, but because not every inhabitant of a town
was a burgess or a taxpayer the actual population total would have been
higher (by a factor of about 4-6). Also, the number of burgages recorded
usually only includes those which were either occupied by a burgess or
being rented by them. The total number of burgages laid out in a town
at the time of its foundation could easily have been higher. To confuse
matters even further, sometimes one burgess could rent more than one
burgage, or one burgage may become subdivided and held by more than one
burgess, so the burgage and burgess figures may not always tally. So
these historical sources can be traced, references are provided in the
historical essays. Two dimensions are also given, the area of the town
and its overall length/breadth as measured along two main axes (usually
the main streets). The calculations are based on field survey data gathered
in 2004 and are approximate for the towns as they were at around 1300.

A note on units of measurement and money

Measurements of area and length in the atlas entries are given in imperial
units (ie. acres, feet) with their metric equivalents (ie. hectares,
metres). Monetary values are in pounds (£), shillings (s) and pence
(d). Twelve pence made a shilling and twenty shillings a pound. As a
guide to value of currency, at the end of the thirteenth century a carpenter’s
daily wage was around two and a half pence, and while a labourer might
earn thirty shillings a year, an aristocratic lord, such as an earl,
could have an income of around £5000 a year.